When looking to grow your company, it makes sense to hire a marketing strategist.
Business owners don’t blink when it comes to hiring specialists for their business such as accountants, lawyers, and customer service reps.
Yet, for some reason, many entrepreneurs and business owners resist the move to hire a professional marketer. Many times they think it can be done in-house, often resulting in a haphazard approach and questionable results.
Keep in mind that your marketing team is what puts money directly into your pocket. Therefore, spending money in this area should be seen as an investment rather than simply an expense.
Hiring a marketing professional does come at a cost. Based on Robert Half’s salary guide for 2023, the median salary for a creative director is around $159,000 per year, depending on location. Adding benefits to this base adds an additional 25 to 40%, according to Joe Hadzima of the MIT Sloan School of Management. If you choose to hire a consultant rather than bringing on an employee, you will shave the benefit portion from these figures. But anyway you look at it, if you’re going to hire a quality marketer with any level of expertise, it will represent an investment.
Based on these figures, doesn’t it make sense to ensure that you are hiring a marketer with the expertise to guide your marketing strategy with skill and precision who will give the proper direction to help grow your business? Choosing the wrong fit can result in wasted time and lost money. Therefore, use the following questions as a guide to help you find the best person for your business.
You may wish to start your interview with fact-based questions. These questions will confirm whether the candidate has the skills that you’re looking for, as well as provide you some information that can be verified.
Some examples of fact-based questions are:
1. How long have you worked in the industry?
2. What was your last job, and how long were you there?
3. Do you have formal training, and if so, where did you get it?
4. What is your favorite part of marketing?
5. Do you have experience managing others?
6. What has been your most successful marketing campaign to date?
7. Do you have any particular marketing strategies that you prefer to use?
Now that you have the basics, consider asking some situational questions. These types of questions provide insight into how the candidate will handle situations that may arise at your business.
Try asking questions such as:
1. You have received a call from a client who claims that he did not receive a package that you sent via courier, yet the courier confirms that it was delivered. How would you handle the situation?
2. Social media has a big impact on businesses these days. You’ve just found out that a negative review has been posted regarding the company. How do you take care of the situation?
3. The company is looking to rebrand itself from the ground up. What are the steps you would take to manage this redesign?
4. The company is planning a major event. How do you begin planning for this process?
5. One of the employees you manage has inadvertently posted a personal opinion on the company’s account. How would you manage this?
6. What do you do to stay up to date with marketing techniques?
7. Are there any recently developed marketing strategies, techniques or tools that have captured your interest right now?
The final area that you should be focusing your interview questions on is behavioral questions. After all, how people have behaved in the past is often a good indication of how they will react in the future.
Consider the following as a starting point:
1. We have all had the experience of having to work with a difficult colleague. Please tell me about a situation in your past and how you handled it.
2. Describe a situation where you had to juggle multiple projects, all with different deadlines.
3. Tell me about an incident when you made a big mistake and had to think on your feet to resolve the situation.
4. Share with me an example of where you had to put in a significant amount of time and effort upfront and then wait a long time to achieve success.
5. What was the last criticism that you received and how did you react to it?
6. Tell me about a situation in a previous position where you had to take initiative.
7. What is the project from your work history that you are most proud of?
The 21 questions listed above should give you a good blueprint of some of the questions you may wish to present to any potential new marketing hire.
Until next time…
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